By Chris WittsWednesday 7 Sep 2022Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
Transcript:
It was Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who simply said life is too short for long term grudges. Now, I don’t know if he meant the short term grudges are okay, but I think his comment is worth talking about because it’s easy to end up carrying a grudge. Getting hurt or disappointed by someone will lead to resentment.
And if this feeling continues to build up and grow stronger, it can develop into a full fledged grudge. At this point, there are two choices open to you. You can either nurse the grudge and let it grow and linger for years. Or you can free yourself of the emotional mental burden and let that grudge go and just move on.
It does sound simple. It’s not quite that easy to make a choice. Carrying grudges can create massive problems for us down the road. One of the many problems with carrying grudges is that it can affect you more than the person that you’re holding it against. Has that ever entered your thinking? After all, they don’t have to live with the hate and negative feelings you do.
They’ve probably moved on and you’re still nursing the grudge. Holding grudges is not an easy one to let go of. It takes time prayer, and oftentimes it’s something that will come up again and again in your life. People are going to hurt us, but they don’t have the power over us. And that’s an important lesson for all of life. You have control over what happens in your life. Most of the time.
The toxicity of grudges
Holding a grudge won’t get you anywhere, faster and ultimately will slow you down. It was Angela Buttimer, who said, “When we hold onto grudges and resentment, it’s like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick.” Why do we hold grudges when they are in fact, quite painful to maintain and often seem to work against what we really want.
So what keeps us stuck when we want to move on and let go? How can we let go? Researchers found that people who hold grudges, uh, less prone to forgive, have higher blood pressure and are more likely to die from heart disease
It also affects your immune system, your metabolism as well as organ function. So is there any solution?
Yes, there is.
Bring God into the picture. Life is not always fair. Yes, that’s true. Clean up your grudges. Forgive that person who was upset you. It was the Christian leader, T. D. Jakes, who said, “We cannot embrace God’s forgiveness if we’re busy clinging to the past wounds and nursing old grudges.” God has forgiven us through the death of His Son, Jesus on the cross. Jesus died for all our sins and falsehoods. So that’s why we can forgive others the wrong they do to us. Carrying a grudge achieves nothing except bitterness and trouble, and destroys friendships and other relationships. But the Bible says we should give up our right for revenge. In other words, it’s for our own good to forgive others. You may want to hurt that person, but God says “no, it’s not up to you. I will deal with it in my own divine way because justice is my job.”
So we must do our best to lay aside our right for revenge and trust our Heavenly Father to fix the problem. The Bible is clear in its teaching not to jump to hasty conclusions. And in situations like feuds or strong arguments, we need to be slow to act.
Acting hastily can often be the wrong thing to do. So take a deep breath and pray. And that’s what James in his epistle says. Be slow to get angry, James 1:19, and the rest of that verse says, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires (verse 20). God’s ways are higher than ours, and he wants us to get along with other people in a spirit of love and cooperation, the Apostle Paul says In 1 Corinthians 13. Love bears all things, believes all things and endures all things. Can you believe the best about your friend to whom you carry a grudge? I hardly think so.
Sometimes we jump to the wrong conclusions, and just because someone who has offended you once, does not necessarily mean they’ll do it again. Everyone deserves a second chance.
Let’s Pray
Heavenly Father, I do understand today that life is too short to carry grudges. That’s a lesson I need to learn. And Lord, my friends also need to understand how true that is. Give us a spirit of love and cooperation towards all people. Amen.